Near Golden, a small town in British Columbia which nestles in a trench between the Purcell and Rocky Mountains, lies the
Rocky Mountain Buffalo Ranch where one can hire a cabin (at left in the picture). We had hardly climbed out of the car before we spotted....
....an anise swallowtail feeding on the nectar of a lilac bush which stood beside the picnic table.
Suddenly we were back in wilderness relatively untouched by man, in a place which....
....as well as being home to a herd of semi-domesticated bison....
....had a nearby river, the Blaeberry, which acted as a corridor for migrating herds of deer and their predators, including cougar, grizzly bear and wolf.
We didn't see any of the top predators but we did spot a coyote as we walked down to the river. In the mixed woodland and on the pebbly outwash of the braided river bed we found a wealth of wildflowers including....
....scarlet paintbrush, also called indian paintbrush....
....sitka columbine, a spectacular species of aquilegia, and....
....two orchids, yellow ladies slipper (above) and the more modest but delicately pretty round-leaved orchid.
This is the sort of place where I feel at home. While humans are taming the wilderness nature keeps coming back, so every new day there is something to see, something to excite.
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